Trial Advocacy Research Guide: Examination of Witnesses

This book contains 12 chapters covering all aspects of witness preparation. Whether for a first-time, second-chair associate, or a veteran first-chair partner preparing for his/her 100th jury trial, this book will provide guidance, thoughtful insights, and unique perspectives on preparing a witness to testify.

In this 4th edition, the author examines the general concepts involved in witness preparation, focusing on clear and simple rules and how to adapt those rules to different situations.

The book includes a CD-Rom with material from appendices including memoranda outlining the rules discussed in the book.

Using a variety of direct examinations from actual trials, this work analyzes: establishing loss of future earnings in work injury, medical malpractice, and products liability cases; keeping injury focused on impact of injury on plaintiff's life; establishing credibility of experts; controlling flow of questions and answers; providing liability by circumstantial evidence; and much more.

Examination of Witnesses provides an in-depth view of the legal issues involved in direct and cross-examination to help you master the art of witness interrogation. New edition issued every year.

Also available online via Westlaw

Examining Witnesses, Second Edition provides the theory, techniques, and strategy guidance needed to use witnesses effectively in trial. Practical and comprehensive, it covers virtually every type of witness and witness situation you are likely to encounter. It covers the entire trial process, from the first client meeting through seeing, shaping, presenting, and summing up the case.

Many, if not most, trial lawyers do not know what they can or cannot do to impeach. Most importantly, they do not know how to do what they can do. MacCarthy on Impeachment offers trial lawyers "weapons of mass destruction." This book reveals those "weapons" and offers instruction on how to use them.

This concise handbook provides 70 model examinations that show how to deal effectively with practical evidentiary issues that every trial lawyer faces.

This book examines proven techniques of questioning and their direct application to witnesses during trial or at deposition. Along with a discussion of tactics developed by law enforcement personnel, journalists, attorneys, and psychologists, the volume presents court-proven methods for maintaining witness control during oral testimony.

Why smart people give bad testimony -- Make the first answer the best answer -- The danger in saying too little -- The danger in avoiding ambiguous questions -- The danger in not improving upon the question -- The danger in "I Don't Recall" -- All witnesses are different -- The better witness -- Knowing and preparing your witness -- Why Tom Brady got a four-game suspension and what that teaches about witness preparation -- Yes, no, or something else -- Answering ambiguous questions -- Deficient memory and other common testimonial issues -- Witness remorse and testimonial style -- Documents and impeachment -- Direct examination -- Preparing experts.

The editor culled forty years of trial wisdom from Litigation Magazine for a collection of articles on cross-examination which collectively covered all aspects of the art. Noted authors include Irving Younger, Terrence F. MacCarthy, and Scott Turow.

A how-to book that focuses on helping the reader gain more leverage and credibility in cross-examination by utilizing proven techniques with witnesses. Learn about questioning techniques, impeaching witnesses, confronting and preparing the expert, and tips for trial practice, among others.

This book provides instructions on planning a winning cross-examination, such as how to select the content and mold it into a persuasive concession-seeking or impeachment cross. It also offers practical techniques and strategies for performing cross, including witness control, handling problematic witnesses and successfully cross-examining experts and illustrative cross-examinations from notable trials, such as the O. J. Simpson, Scopes, Senator Stevens, and Enron, show how to apply cross strategies and techniques.

Includes CD-Rom with case files and assignments.

1. Philosophy and overview of the science of cross -- 2. The chapter method of cross -- 3. Developing, promoting, and employing our theory of the case -- 4. Cross-focused investigation discovery and investigation -- 5. Constructive cross -- 6. Cross preparation systems: sourcing the facts -- 7. Cross-prepartation system 1: drafting topic chapters -- 8. Cross-preparation system 2: sequence of events charts -- 9. Cross-preparation system 3: witness statement comparison charts -- 10. The only three rules of cross -- 11. Page preparation of cross -- 12. Sequence of cross -- 13. Destroying safe havens -- 14. Cross without discovery -- 15. Controlling the runaway witness -- 16. Dealing with the "I don't know" or "I don't remember" witness -- 17. Creation and uses of silence -- 18. Value-based cross -- 19. Impeachment by inconsistent statement -- 20. Impeachment by omission -- 21. Specialized impeachment techniques -- 22. Redirect and recross examination -- 23. Diminishing or building the point -- 24. Juxtaposition -- 25. Trilogies -- 26. Loops, double loops, and spontaneous loops -- 27. Voice, movement, body language, and timing -- 28. Coping with objections -- 29. Recognizing and controlling bait.

Also available online via Lexis.

Terence MacCarthy is synonymous with effective cross-examination. For 40 years he was the head of the Federal Defender's Office in Chicago. This book teaches how to manage and effectively minimize the witness's involvement, without appearing controlling, and discover how to use effective short statements and make the witness affirm everything they say. The book contains illustrative cross examinations from a number of actual cases.

This book offers strategies, angles of attack, and pattern cross-examinations for common fact patterns in 10 broad areas of civil law, including: personal injury, medical malpractice, employment, and insurance. Cross-examinations for the key witnesses in every fact pattern are annotated with practice points, technique tips and objections/responses.

Includes CD Rom with forms

Fifty of the nation's top trial lawyers share the secrets of the most engaging, difficult, and dramatic aspect of their work cross-examination.

Learn how to undermine an expert's testimony by showing bias, lack of qualification, inconsistency with prior statements, etc., how to use a witness to prove your case and how to control a hostile witness.

The authors analyze the cross examinations of leading practitioners that illustrate: the impeachment of an expert witness, proving a case through cross examination of an adverse medical witness, refuting negative test results, and many other issues.

This book offers a step-by-step guide to investigating, evaluating, and attacking the adverse expert in civil cases.

The book includes a CD-Rom with checklists from the appendices.

This book answers the most commonly asked questions about experts, such as: How do you approach an expert problem? What is the impact of Daubert on expert preparation, direct and cross? How do you structure direct examination of an expert? How do you avoid fatal blunders when you prepare an expert?

This book is intended to give experts the confidence they need to be comfortable in court, and give attorneys the skills necessary to emphasize the credibility of an expert.

Expert Witnesses in Civil Trials, Effective Preparation and Presentation offers a logical and straightforward approach to the use of substantive, technical, strategic, and tactical considerations for successfully using expert witnesses in all types of civil litigation.

This book focuses on the responsibilities of expert witnesses. It defines legal terms and vocabulary, and each chapter tackles subjects seen in today's cases, courtrooms, and news media—forensic fraud, forensic negligence, and incompetence, for example.

This book examines the role of the expert witness, focusing on taking depositions, expert qualifications, admissibility of testimony, attorney-client privilege, Daubert, rules of discovery and evidence, selecting and presenting experts, and direct examination of experts.

This book reviews all the major evidentiary doctrines applicable to scientific evidence. The book first analyzes the admissibility of the testimony of the witnesses who lay the chain of custody for the physical evidence tested. It then catalogues the admissibility attacks on the expert witnesses who teach the jury about the theory and instrument, report about the specific test in question, and evaluate the test result for the jury. The book also covers the tactics of attacking the weight of scientific evidence, and dissects the attacks on the weight of many different factors.

Scientific Evidence first covers rules and precedents relating to admissibility, constitutional limitations, discovery, expert testimony, laboratory reports, and chain of custody. It then analyzes the most frequently encountered scientific evidence and the latest developments in scientific evidence, such as hypnotically-refreshed testimony, DNA technologies such as RFLP and PCR, computerized accident reconstruction, securing expert assistance, questioned document examination, and bite mark comparison.